Creative Idea: Depotting Eyeshadows & Another Magnetic Palette

WARNING: Picture Heavy

I've done some depotting before and some of it wasn't very pretty. I basically used the alcohol method of trying to loosen the glue but sometimes it didn't work well. Heat seemed like the best method but I was trying at all costs to avoid depotting using a candle because I felt that it was just too dangerous. I thought about trying using a flat iron but I had read that it wasn't as effective and I didn't like the thought of possibly ruining my flat iron plates. After much thought I got the idea to use my heat gun that I use for doing embossing in rubber stamping crafts. It has worked out well for me and I had a couple of people ask me how I do it.

Supplies needed:
   Palette
   Heat Gun
   Pointed Item to Push the Pan--A pen works well

For this tutorial, I am going to depot a Wet N Wild palette.

This is my heat gun. There are various brands out there with various prices but are priced around $29.99. You can usually find these in a craft store.

First you need to remove the stickers that are around the palette. The front has a short sticker tab that has the color of the palette. I usually like to keep this on the side. The back is fully covered with a sticker which has application instructions.

Often these stickers pull of cleanly and easily but if it feels like it is really stuck well, I usually blast it for a short period with the heat gun  and the sticker will pull off easily.

I think that it is best to remove the sticker because the heat of the heat gun is quite hot and it is possible that it might get hot enough to ignite.

We will remove a pan at a time, concentrating the heat gun's air flow on the area where that one pan is. It is best to work in a well-ventilated area because the plastic will melt a bit and there are some fumes that are emitted.

Continue to have the heat gun heat that area until you can see the plastic start to melt. It'll look like it has condensation forming on the plastic. It should take only a couple of minutes. You don't want to have the plastic melt, only soften.

At this point, you can turn off the heat gun and using your desired instrument, poke that area and see if it has softened enough for you to be able to push the plastic forward. If it is still not soft enough, apply more heat using the heat gun for about another minute.

Your pan should pop out of the case and you can either have it softly drop upside down onto a soft towel or you can carefully grab the lifted pan and place it aside. Be sure to protect your fingers because the pan will be hot.

Here you can see that I was able to push the pan out but my pen did not make an actual hole in the plastic.

Using the heat gun again, follow the same steps to remove the rest of the pans. Using this heat gun method ensured that my eyeshadow pans stayed perfectly intact. I haven't had any cracked or crumbled shadows and haven't nicked or put a gouge mark in it.

Note: While apply the heat with the heat gun, make sure to keep your fingers well away from the heat. It is best to hold the cover while the bottom corner of the case is on your towel-covered surface.

Now that you have removed the pans from the palette, you can cover the bottom of each pan with a magnetic strip after it has cooled and place it into a magnetic palette of your choice. Thus my segue to the 2nd part of this Creative Idea post.

Some time last year I had seen a few posts about turning a DVD case into a magnetic palette. I thought that it was a great idea and recently started working on that project. At first it was a bit frustrating because it wasn't quite as easy as it looked and because I tend to be a perfectionist when I create something that I had to have it nearly perfect according to my standards. Once I got the hang of how I wanted it to be, I went a bit crazy and a few bloggers were (un)lucky recipients of this palette.

I used a DVD case, made a nice cover for it by printing out a picture but you can use any nice printed paper as well.

I also added a picture to the inside cover where I had to cut out the portion where you would normally snap in the dvd. I cut a magnetic sheet to fit inside the case and put my depotted shadows in it.

This magnetic palette happens to be filled with all Wet N Wild eyeshadows. In between the two tabs, there is enough space to put a magnetic strip which will fit the last palette that I depotted.

I then place the small sticker tab that has the palette's name in an open area near the depotted pans.

As you can see in the pictures, I also place decorative magnetic strips which mark off each palette. That's just something that I decided I wanted to do. I don't think that I will be doing it with all of the palettes I depot. In the last picture if you look closely, just above and just below the palette that I just put in, I also added the applicators that came with the Wet N Wild palette. I did it just to show that it will fit in there. I normally don't use the included applicators so they will not stay in my palette.

If you've managed to read this up to this point, thank you! It is a long post. I hope that you found it interesting and helpful.

Review + EOTD: L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadows

Ever since L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadows were released, my blogger friends and I'm sure most of the beauty blogger world, have been going crazy over them and trying get various colors. They were first released in the UK and Canada and it wasn't until some months later that it was released in some parts of Asia and finally the US.

I was fortunate to have been gifted with half of my collection. The rest I have purchased.

I was gifted Time Resist White, Forever Pink, Goldmine and Amber Rush. I purchased Perpetual Purple. Midnight Blue, Sultry Smoke and Eternal Black. I recently discovered that Time Resist White is released only in UK and Canada while Forever Pink is a Canada only release. I'm so grateful to my friends who gifted me with these colors.

Justine of Sakura Lovely probably has one of the most comprehensive collection and listing of the Infallibles here. If you get a chance, please check out not only that post but her whole blog. I'm just amazed by her colleciton. Another lovely blogger, Vicky of Vanity-Fashionista also wrote a blog post about her Infallible collection. She also graphed out the colors, other names they are known by (some of the different country releases have different names although they are the same color). She also graphed out which countries they were released in. That post is here. Again, please check out Vicky's blog too. Both of these women are so sweet and I'm fortunate to have become friends with them.

I recently did an EOTD using the Infallibles,

Products used:

Urban Decay Eyeshadow Primer Potion in Eden
L'Oreal Infallible Eyeshadows in Forever Pink, Perpetual Purple and Midnight Blue
K-Palette Real Lasting Eyeliner

Forever Pink in in the inner 1/3 of the eye, Perpetual Purple in the middle 1/3 and Midnight Blue at the outer 1/3.

Lined my upper lashline and outer lower lashline with K-Palette.

I really love the colors. I only wish that Perpetual Purple came out a little bit more brilliant because you can't really tell it's purple in this EOTD. I like to blend my eye shadows but I find that blending the Infallibles isn't easy. Normally I work going from lighter to darker colors but I think that I will need to go from darker to lighter to achieve the blending that I want. I also think that it's best to use an eyeshadow primer to help bring out and hold the color.

I have heard that Infallibles are comparable to Giorgio Armani Eyes To Kill but I can't comment on that as I haven't seen or tried Giorgio Armani. I will say that these are really nice shadows to have. They do last all day long and I had no fall out problems. The shimmer in the shadows did not travel down to my cheeks or around my face through out the day. For the price, it is worth trying them out. There is probably only one other color that I'm really interested in getting and then I think I'm good, unless there is a release of more colors.

*Kat*

Purchase Review: L'Oreal Voluminous False Fiber Lashes

As many asian women, I have been "blessed" with stick straight eyelashes. While they do curl easily with an eyelash curler, non waterproof mascara tends to uncurl them and even extremely moist waterproof mascaras will uncurl them. If the waterproof mascara is on the drier side, then they will not uncurl. The downside to this is that mascara is difficult to remove and I do find waterproof mascaras to be drying to my lashes, which is not good.

In my search for a good non waterproof mascara that will curl my lashes without an eyelash curler or if I do curl my lashes, will not uncurl them, I found Japanese brand fiber mascaras work decently well. Canmake Gokubuto mascara has been my HG mascara as it somewhat curls my lashes and is water resistant, which makes it easily removable.

On Saturday Mai and I were shopping in Bed Bath and Beyond and we came upon L'Oreal Voluminous False Fiber Lashes mascara. The packaging says that lashes will appear fuller, longer and curled and that it is easily removable with soap and water.

Mai's favorite L'Oreal mascara has been discontinued so we both decided to give this a try.

Here are my lashes before applying mascara and which have not been curled at all.

As you can see, they are quite straight.

Here are my lashes after applying the mascara. Again, I didn't use an eyelash curler to curl my lashes.

Wow, they are significantly curled! This mascara didn't clump on me and even after 10 hours of wear, it didn't flake. I'm just so amazed that my lashes curled as much as it did without using an eyelash curler. It did wash off easily, although I always use an eye makeup remover when I wear mascara, irregardless of whether it's waterproof or not. I liked it so much that I have already gone back and bought a backup of it.

Mai has had the same results and she really likes it too. The only thing that she doesn't like is the brush. I think that she finds it too long because she said she nearly poked her eye out. I haven't had any problems though.

In case anyone is wondering, my eyemake up consisted of using NARS Hanamichi palette with Urban Decay Half-Baked. This was taken on Monday, which was Chinese New Year so I wanted to do my eye colors to match Chinese New Year. I also used the red color in Hanamichi as my blush. I'm totally loving this palette and am so glad that I ended up purchasing it.

*Kat*

Happy Lunar New Year + A Thought For A Good 2012

I know that I've already wished everyone a Happy New Year but it is now the Lunar New Year. I would write it in Chinese but I've seen it written so many different ways that I'm a bit confused now. I decided not to even attempt to figure out which is the most correct way since I am not Chinese and don't know where to begin.

HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR! Let's all band together and make 2012 be a good one!

A floral arrangement for the lunar new year:

There are 3 small lanterns in the arrangement. Can you see them? There is actually a button on the top of each latern, which when pressed, will light up the lantern. It changes colors after a short while.

I think that in order for 2012 to be an awesome year, we as individuals, need to be proactive in the process. Of course, there are things that we can't control, like Mother Nature for example. A good friend of mine wrote an excellent blog post at the end of 2011. I hope that you will take the time to read it. It is written by Sheila of Maddy Loves and is titled "Blogging & Cyberbullying".

The internet has certainly expanded my world, as well as everyone else's. The world has become a smaller place as we are now able to communicate, find information and make purchases online. Internet, for me, is a wonderful tool and I've made so many wonderful friends in all corners of the world. Unfortunately, there is also an ugliness to the internet and people do feel much freer in doing and saying things that they normally wouldn't do in person. The internet allows you to remain anonymous and hide behind profile nicknames. I was appalled when I watched a YouTube video some months back. It was a tutorial by a well-known beauty blogger and I always appreciate the hard work that goes into doing those. I normally don't read the comments but I happened to and was shocked by the amount of mean comments. While I think that constructive negative comments are okay, mean and vindictive ones are not. I then went to another beauty blogger YouTube tutorial video and checked out the comments there and saw the same things.

As was mentioned in Sheila's writeup and was probably one of the main reasons why she wrote it, is that one of her friends, who happens to be a friend of mine, was being targeted. I believe some things were written as comments on her blog but most of them were in beauty-related forums. I did find it quite interesting that these were in countries where what you say and do are significantly monitored by government.

While these wonderful people who are being targeted seem to brush it off and ignore, one cannot deny that it is hurtful. Let us please remember the famous quote: "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all." Hiding behind your profile nicknames and vindictive commenting as "anonymous" is cowardly. Negative comments are not unwelcome as long as they are tactful and constructive.

It is my hope that we can all be a kinder, gentler person. What goes around, comes around and if we can "pay it forward", just think of how much nicer this world will be.

*Kat*

Saturday With Mai

Today I left home at 10:00 to meet up with Mai. She invited me to go with her to her company's departmental holiday celebration luncheon. This luncheon was held at the Prince Court Restaurant in the Hawaii Prince Hotel. This hotel is an upscale hotel and the buffet luncheon was amazing. There were different food stations--Japanese, Chinese, Hawaiian, Salad and even a Sushi station! Of course there was an amazing dessert station.

My first round to the food buffet:

It was really difficult to choose from all of the different choices. There is red potato salad, green salad topped with spicy tofu salad, shrimp tempura and cataloupe.

I also went to the sushi station and got...

Spicy Ahi (Tartar Tuna) Sushi!

Next round to the buffet...

More cantaloupe, miso soup, namasu (pickled cucumbers) shrimp tempura, laulau and another sushi roll. This time it was a California Roll.

There was a wide selection of desserts as well. I took pictures of the ones that I thought were most interesting.

Strawberry Mango Mousse Cake

Pineapple Cheesecake

Strawberry Shortcake

Fruit Tart

Creme Caramel

There were a few others, two of which were chocolate. Amazingly, neither one of them interested me. One had macadamia nuts in it but they were so large that I didn't think I would enjoy it. The other looked like it would be way too rich for my tastes. My choices were:

Strawberry Shortcake, Strawberry Mango Mousse Cake, Bread Pudding with Vanilla Sauce and Creme Caramel.

I also got a bowl of Almond Float.

It is also known as Almond Tofu.

I was really impressed by the chocolate piece that adorned the top of my strawberry shortcake.

It was so pretty!

I can't believe that I ate as much as I did! Mai and I were so stuffed after eating all of the wonderful food. I was sad that I forgot my phone so I couldn't tweet pictures during the meal.

We then headed over to her son's martial arts class and spent a couple of hours there before going to Ala Moana Shopping Center for a bit of shopping. We didn't spend much time there and opted to go to my house to drop off dinner to my family and then go to Pearlridge Shopping Center to shop. We also went to Bed Bath and Beyond which is right next to the shopping center. The amazing thing is that I spent more money on beauty items in Bed Bath and Beyond than I did in Sephora! I bought a L'Oreal mascara that looks really interesting. It is Voluminous False Fiber Lashes. I will test it out and do a review. I also picked up a Neutrogena eye makeup remover pads container. It was the first time that I have seen those so I'm curious to test this out too. At Sephora, all that I picked up was a Sephora brand eyeliner, which was only $5.00! That's probably the smallest purchase that I've made in Sephora ever.

It was a fun Saturday with Mai. We hadn't seen each other in almost a month so it was fun spending the time together and catching up.

I hope that everyone's weekend has been going well.

*Kat*

Brush of The Month--Final Edition

I'm still trying to finish up my 2011 year-end posts. Today's post is my November and December Brush of the Month brushes.

It's funny how it ended up being that the brushes for both months are crease brushes. The one of the left is an e.l.f. brush and the two on the right are a pair of really, really inexpensive brushes that came as a set. I like using crease brushes for applying my eyeshadows, especially if I'm doing more precision type of application of colors.

So this ends my 2011 Brush of the Month project. I'm so glad that I decided to do this to build up my brush collection. There are a few brushes that I purchased that I really like so I will definitely be purchasing more. I usually like to have 3 in rotation--1 that I'm using, another that gets used when the 1st one has been washed and is drying and a 3rd one for backup.

The weather has been a lot cooler which makes for longer drying time. Thanks to a recent post by Jen of From Head to Toe, I am now using her suggestion for the quick brush clean up. I'm sure that all of you have seen this post and her video as it is hard to find anyone who is not following her. I've always used packets of Purell Wipes to clean my fingers before I do any finger application so that I don't contaminate my products. However, you can't use the Purell Wipes on your brushes as I think it is too harsh. Seeing her suggestion, I've switched over to Wet Ones to sanitize my fingers as well as my brushes.

*Kat*

Creative Idea: DIY Mini Magnetic Palette

I'm going to start and try to continue doing a series of Creative Idea posts. These may include DIY, recycling or otherwise. It will hopefully spark my creative juices as well as be budget minded.

There are times when I need to go straight from work to a function. Recently it was for Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's house. I wanted to be able to touch up my eye makeup a bit after I got to my mom's house but didn't want to carry the two palettes that my two pans of eyeshadows were in.

After a bit of thought, I decided that the two pans would fit into the small Altoids mint tin. I put a magnetic strip into the bottom of the tin and put the two pans into it. I was able to carry just that small tin, which was less bulky than carrying the two palettes. It worked very well but I had to admit that it looked a bit tacky.

Remember the packet of Victorian cutouts that I received as a gift from Jamilla? I used that for this creative DIY project.

I used the small Altoids tin, painted it a gold color and added one of the cutouts to decorate the cover, which hides the raised "Altoids" wording. The end result is a nicely decorated Altoids tin, in which one can't tell it was originally an Altoids tin, from the outside anyway.

As an afterthought, I didn't need to add a magnetic strip in the tin because the MAC pan is magnetized and the other pans that I have depotted has magnets applied to the bottoms of the pans already. They do adhere to the Altoids tin without the magnetic strip on the bottom.

I will be doing more of these and will also use the larger Altoids tin. I have also purchased a blank tin to see how that will work out and if it does work out well, I will be purchasing more blank tins to create magnetic palettes.

*Kat*

Using My Stash

At the end of December, I used up enough products to do another Using My Stash post. In many ways, it feels so gratifying to be using up so many things, even if many are mini sizes.

First up is skin care items. The only full-sized item is the Nature Republic White Therapy face wash. I've actually been using that face wash for over a year! It lasted me that long. It was okay but given the chance to purchase it, I don't think I would. The rest of the items are all mini sizes. The tops of the Noevir items I've written letters on the top so that I knew what it was as the items are different things but in same-sized bottles.

More skin care items. The Naive face wash and ZA sunscreen were both full-sized items. I loved the Naive Aloe face wash and will purchase it again when I've used up all of the face washes in my stash. This face wash also lasted me a year. It was a thank you gift from someone. I liked the ZA sunscreen, which was a gift from Sheila. I can't get ZA here any more. Fortunately, I have other sunscreens that I like and can purchase here.

The only hair care product that I used up was Neuma Moisture conditioner. I did like it but don't think that I'll be purchasing it again. The shampoo will probably be used up soon.

Lastly is makeup. I used up my Canmake mascaras and K-Palette eyeliner. These items are what I would consider staples in my makeup so they are replaced. I also used up a Canmake loose powder blush. I liked the color a lot but still not sure if I like the loose powder form. I have so many other blushes to use so will not be purchasing a replacement soon, although I would like to try the same color in a pressed powder blush.

Hoping that I use up a lot more of my stash in 2012!

*Kat*